Problem: In triangle $ABC$, we have that $E$ and $F$ are midpoints of sides $\overline{AC}$ and $\overline{AB}$, respectively. The area of $\triangle ABC$ is 24 square units. How many square units are in the area of $\triangle CEF$?
Explanation: We first draw a diagram: [asy]
pair A, B, C, E, F;
A = (0, 4);
B = (-3, 0);
C = (7, 0);
E = 0.5 * A + 0.5 * C;
F = 0.5 * A + 0.5 * B;
draw(A--B--C--cycle);
draw(C--E--F--cycle);
label("$A$", A, N);
label("$B$", B, NW);
label("$C$", C, NE);
label("$E$", E, NE);
label("$F$", F, NW);
[/asy] Since $F$ is the midpoint of $\overline{AB}$, the area of $\triangle AFC$ is half of the area of $\triangle ABC,$ or 12 square units. Following the same reasoning, we see that $E$ is the midpoint of $\overline{AC},$ so the area of $\triangle CEF$ is half that of $\triangle AFC,$ or $\boxed{6}$ square units.